News

With the viewpoint that improved relations between police and the communities they serve start at the top, an Executive Master of Leadership (EML) class at the USC Price School of Public Policy hosted a timely discussion on race and police from a leadership perspective. The diverse panel featured a mix of high-ranking law enforcement professionals, community leaders and faculty experts.

NBC News’ “PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton” interviewed Erroll Southers of the USC Price School about the July 23 shooting at a movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana. Addressing recent reports that the shooter had racist and anti-government posts online, Southers said, “Here we are just five weeks after the Charleston, South Carolina, shooting, with another individual who is a self-starter, a lone wolf. These online postings are giving us a significant electronic fingerprint with regards to his thinking.” A noted terrorism expert and author of the book Homegrown Violent, Southers added, “Here’s an individual who was, at least, embracing a collection of ideologies in order to move forward.”

The Star-Ledger ran an op-ed by Professor Raphael Bostic of the USC Price School about the lack of affordable housing options in New Jersey. One in four of the 42 million American families who rent their homes pay more than half their income on rent and utilities, Bostic wrote. “When families are able to afford decent homes, they have a better shot at success in life,” he wrote. Bostic previously served as assistant secretary for policy development and research at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

ABC News Los Angeles affiliate KABC-TV quoted USC Price School Dean Jack Knott about a student who died after being struck by lightning last year. The student’s parents started a memorial scholarship in their son’s name, and tributes were planned at Venice Beach, the story noted.

Al Jazeera America News interviewed USC Price Professor James Moore about infrastructure funding as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo unveiled plans for a $4 billion overhaul of LaGuardia Airport. With limited federal funds, future infrastructure projects might be funded at the state level, the story noted. “We’re going to see the use of more technology, more automated toll lanes, more congestion toll deployments, more large-scale tolling schemes over the years as a way of raising local revenue for particularly local projects. That’ll allow the federal government to pull back a little bit to a more appropriate roll,” Moore said.

The San Diego Union-Tribune quoted Dana Goldman, USC Price professor and director of the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics, about the impact that personalized medicine can have on healthcare.

The Associated Students of Planning and Development (ASPD) at the USC Price School of Public Policy received the Academic Award of Merit from the American Planning Association’s Los Angeles chapter. The award recognizes the student organization’s innovative Neighborhood Bicycle Program, which repurposes abandoned bicycles into the local community.

Inside Higher Ed’s “Academic Minute” featured an interview with USC Price Professor Martin Krieger about the nature of innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship. Krieger looked at how these traits are manifested in historical figures such as St. Augustine and Moses, and present-day mothers raising the next generation.

NBC News’ “PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton” interviewed Erroll Southers of the USC Price School about the recent shootings in Tennessee and South Carolina. The contemporary definition of terrorism has expanded beyond state-sponsored groups to now include “individuals or non-governmental groups,” Southers explained. “There are three things we really need to think about [regarding] terrorism. We need to think about the threat or the use of violence, we need to look at whether the targets of those violent acts are civilians, and then we need to determine whether or not a political objective was met,” he said. Southers, a noted terrorism expert, is the author of the book Homegrown Violent Extremism.

USC and the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT) have announced the selection of 11 researchers from Mexico who will join USC this fall as part of a new initiative to jointly fund them as postdoctoral fellows for up to two years. Among this group is Iván Farías Pelcastre, a public policy researcher, who will work with Robert Suro at the USC Price School of Public Policy.

California Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. on July 2 appointed Dean Borg, MPA ’88, to serve as deputy director of the Division of Facility Planning, Construction and Management at the state’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

A detailed report produced by Master of Public Policy students at the USC Price School of Public Policy validated that a Price Philanthropies partnership with a YMCA in San Diego is having the intended effect of bringing people of diverse backgrounds together to participate in programs that emphasize youth development, healthy living and social responsibility.

KPCC-FM’s “Take Two” interviewed Sherry Bebitch Jeffe of the USC Price School about current California legislation, including labor regulations. “I just said OMG,” Bebitch said of a newly-signed law making cheerleaders legal employees.

Zocalo Public Square cited research by Professor Dowell Myers of the USC Price School and Manuel Pastor of the USC Dornsife College regarding stagnant population growth in California. The article was also published in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Ho Chi Minh City is known for having sidewalks bustling with action. Street vendors set up shop to sell a variety of foods and merchandise, creating a social atmosphere with people of different classes lingering to chat over snacks and drinks. To many city officials, it was an unsightly mess that needed to be cleared off and modernized to impress tourists. To USC Price Associate Professor Annette Kim, it was beautiful. With her newly published book Sidewalk City: Remapping Public Space in Ho Chi Minh City (University of Chicago Press, 2015), Kim uses critical cartography and spatial ethnography to provide new insights into the value and potential of this contested public space.

Dean Jack H. Knott of the Price School of Public Policy and Dean Yannis C. Yortsos of the Viterbi School of Engineering announced the creation of a new Center on Decisions and Ethics at the two schools, effective Aug. 16. The mission of the new center is to enhance the scholarship and education of decision analysis and to increase sensitivity towards ethical considerations in academia, industry, government and society at large.